This Spelling Stinks

I am a stickler for spelling, grammar and punctuation. I hate "text speak" because it makes you look like an idiot. Whose idea was it to start substituting the number 3 for the letter E? They're not the same. And they never will be. Same goes for substituting "dis" for "this" or "dat" for "that". Leaving off the E on the end of words? Just stupid. Putting a Y in place of an I? Equally as stupid. You look like a moron when you type things like "Lyke dis if u cry evertim". And when you do, you sound like this. (You're gonna need to click that to get the point here.) But the real problem arises when you mean to say one word, but you're too clueless to spell the word correctly. And in committing to said incorrect spelling, you completely change the meaning of what you were trying to say. And the difference can be huge. Need an example? Behold!

No one wants to smell like colon, you dumbasses. Cologne maybe. Colon? Highly unlikely. Then again, the whole text speak is something stupid that's popular that I don't understand. Maybe smelling like colon is another one of those popular things. But sweet Jesus, I certainly hope not.

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Crack is Whack

Don't do drugs, kids. Drugs are bad. Drugs will take their toll upon you faster than you realize. Now, for Whitney Houston, I'm not sure how "fast" drugs took their toll, but the drugs definitely took her voice and they took her gift. Below is a video of her singing recently in Brisbane (that's in Australia). She's supposed to be singing "I Will Always Love You". And technically, she is singing that song. But it's not the Whitney Houston of yore that's singing it. It's the new Whitney. The one that spent years sucking on a crack pipe or a meth pipe or whatever pipe it was that ruined her pipes. It's just a sad, sad testimony of how something so beautiful and so wonderful can just be thrown away like she did with it. When she was good, there was nothing like her. And now that she's not so good, I highly doubt that there ever will be anything like her in the near future, if ever. It's very sad. It's also a horrible attempt at an awesome song. Ugh.

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Selective Diversity in Advertising

I'm thinking that if you're a company that markets its product to just about every conceivable demographic that there is, what say you either increase your advertising budget so that you can create custom ads tailored to each particular group or that you just hire people who can use Photoshop in such a way that your end result doesn't look like you used Photoshop. Either way, whatever you do, don't airbrush out the black guy and Photoshop in a white guy. (BONUS TIP: Don't use your competitors products in your ads as if they are your products. Realllllllly awkward.)

Here's the scoop: Microsoft ran a photo ad for Microsoft's business productivity software on their website. The photo shows three people in some sort of business meeting. There's an Asian guy, a black guy and a white woman. All three appear to be just giddy with interest at whatever the woman is doing there with her little remote thing. I'm guessing she's not looking for a ball game, which is unfortunate. (Nothing makes the work day go by faster like watching some ball.) Behold!

Now, if you just glance at the photo, I doubt anything in particular is going to jump out at you. But if you look at it for a minute, you might notice that something just doesn't seem right. There's something amiss(and it's not the chick). For instance, the guy in the middle, why does he have a big ol' jack-o'lantern head there? It's way too big for that body that it's on. And the guy on the end? Where's the rest of his hand?!

I also can't figure out why everyone only has one hand above the table and the other hand below the table (God sees everything!), but maybe it's just some weird policy HR implemented. I really don't know. But we'll get back to the oddities in a minute. Before we do that, we're going to take a stroll over to the Polish version of the same Microsoft site which is advertising the same product with the same photo. Er, uh, well....it's almost the same photo. They had to change few things, starting with Pumpkin Gourd there in the middle. Behold!

Oh. Well. That's...um...different. Sooooooo....they really needed a white guy, eh? What gives? No one is really quite sure, but the general consensus seems to be that it was not racism. Thank God that Al Sharpton is all tied up with exploiting Michael Jackson's death to get involved in this one. If Jacko hadn't been using some sort of an equivalent to an elephant tranquilizer to get to sleep permanently, we could very well have been subjected to the Reverend Al and his Long, Long List of Things Racist White People Do INCLUDING Photoshopping out all black tech workers in Poland! But the take from folks in Poland was that there are very few black people in Poland and Microsoft was probably trying to create an ad that reflected the culture over there. And fair enough. But couldn't they have found a competent photo editor to recreate that culture?

The ad has so many things wrong with it, it's really hard to know where to start. Even though the black guy became much whiter (and a considerable amount younger as well), all of him didn't become whiter, as his hand is still that of the black guy. Behold!

Seriously, how do you miss something like that if you're the one doing the editing? Wouldn't it have just been easier to get another stock photo and make two different ads? I'm thinking it would have, but what do I know? I've always been white. Kind of like that computer. I don't recall Microsoft based computer products coming with that nifty white finish that the laptop in the photo is sporting. No, the only laptops that I recall seeing come in white were.....oh. Macs. Again....awk-ward.

They sure didn't try very hard to cover up that it's a Mac in the photo. Why would they do that? Was it someone's last day? Was there a surge in the hiring of the mentally handicapped? Free food in the lunchroom? I don't get it. You're advertising Microsoft products and you're displaying a Mac. Nice job, Mac-hole! Too bad someone couldn't have explained that concept to said awful, hopefully now unemployed, Photoshop guy. Perhaps at the same time they could have explained that you need to have your peripherals plug INTO something!

Why does the woman's keyboard have a cord that goes to absolutely nothing? Why do the legs of the man (in whichever color) in the middle not seem to line up with where his body is? The woman's left eye (so the one on your right) seems awfully dilated; is she having a stroke? She might be as the front of her jacket there is awfully dark in that one area. Perhaps a stronger anti-perspirant might have been a better choice that morning? (Or maybe just an employee who knows how to use Photoshop.) The whole bloody thing is just a freakin' mess. But it's not like this is the first time that a company's ad was horribly edited. There have been others. Hoo-boy have there been.

Then there was another Microsoft ad, this one for Office. The picture they're using is like some sort of M.C. Escher inspired track runner. Where does he start? Where does he end? Where is the never ending staircase on his head?

Take this gem from both ASUS and MSI who, apparently, both decided to use the same stock photo for their ad. MSI, however, decided to enhance theirs just a bit. I'm guessing because they have a huge client base of elves.

There was this ad for the Lexar Professional 8GB. It was the step up from the 4GB. Unfortunately, the Photoshop job didn't take that same step up. (Note to self: Always check the shadows.)

But I think that my favorite is probably this ad for a computer desk. Thanks for PC World for highlighting this bit of amusement for me. Judging from the size of the monitor and the style of the clothing (not to mention the Bowl Extreme haircut on the blond chap there), I'm guessing we're looking at a preview of the first budding Internet porn addict.

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Happy Halloween, Chica

And Happy Halloween. Halloween is a weird-ass holiday if you're asking me. It's like the ultimate in contradictions when raising a child. You drill things into your child's head (Not literally! Yes, I know it's Halloween, but cranial drilling of one's offspring is never acceptable.) to keep them safe. Things like the old "Don't take candy from strangers." Then, after the kids think that they're clear on the concept, along rolls Halloween and BAM! Confusion runs amok. Not only are they going to be taking candy from strangers on Halloween, they're going to be encouraged to do so. AND they don't even have to wait for the strangers to come to them! No, they can randomly go to people's homes, knock on their door and ASK them to give them candy! And the strangers comply!! OH, but wait! There's a catch! You must ask strangers for candy only if you are dressed up in some sort of scary-ish garb. That's it? That's the catch? Deal! And the merriment begins!

Now if you're a grown-up, or you play one on TV, or even if you stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, it is your job to get candy for these small people that you do not know. My advice is simple: Don't screw it up. You must remember what it was like when you were a child and you went Trick-or-Treating and ended up with horrible candy at the end of the night. It's not pleasant. And as a child, you really feel like you were ripped off somehow by coming home with a bag full of crap. You need to remember that feeling and make sure that you don't continue to pass it around to the hopeful and unsuspecting youngsters who will trample your flowers instead of using the perfectly good walkway as they traipse to your door in search of sugary handouts.

Thus, here are several items that you need to avoid distributing to jovial children who have donned bedsheets for the evening.

• First up are the inexplicable Boston Baked Beans. These are not good. Why someone thought that they could make a candy that looks like and is named after a picnic side dish is beyond me. No one wants candy that is pretending to be a bean. Beans aren't all that fun.
  


• Next up are the Dum Dums. First of all, Dum Dums are way too small for any good use. Second, they never taste like the flavor that the wrapper says. And third, you almost always, for some reason, end up with the cream soda flavored Dum Dums or the pineapple flavored Dum Dums. Probably because the folks handing them out took out all of the good ones. If you're going to hand out lollipops, go with a Tootsie Roll Pop. You can't go wrong with those

• Necco Wafers. From what I can tell, Necco Wafers are Tums antacid tablets that have been flattened out and dusted with sugar. They do not taste good. Contrary to what the waxy wrapper says down there, they are not "an American Classic" and the "flavors" are not "great." Avoid at all costs.

• The general assortment of hard candies. As a rule, if it is a candy that is typically found in a grandmother's purse, you really want to avoid handing those out on Halloween. Especially the butterscotch ones. Children to not like butterscotch. Adults do not like butterscotch. Those elderly women with the candies in their purses? Right, even they don't like butterscotch, that's why they're always giving it away.

• One of the more perplexing candies out there, the Idaho Spud. This is a candy that is supposed to look like an Idaho potato. The thing is, it doesn't really look like that. It looks more like....well, um....OK, fine I'll say it, the thing looks like poo! And no one wants poo on Halloween. Ever. Hand out Necco Wafers before you hand out poo-like treats.

• Now we arrive at the Tootsie Roll. If you must give out Tootsie Rolls, give out a bunch of them to each kid. Those of you who give A Tootsie Roll to A kid are just angry, angry individuals who should probably seek counseling. You'll feel much better about things if you toss a handful of Tootsie Rolls into a kid's bag and watch them shriek with joy (until they realize they were just Tootsie Rolls). It's a lot better than watching them stare at you as you drop A Tootsie roll into their bag. Much better.
  

• Another candy that is not for children and is barely for adults is the Big Hunk. Big Hunk of what has always been my question. This thing is disgusting. It's like some sort of conglomeration of leftovers from another candy making process. Look at it! No one wants that.

• You want to see how close you can get a kid to crying on Halloween? Hand out raisins. What a waste of a walk from the sidewalk to the front door only to be given a very tiny box of raisins which you will not eat. You will use them as ammunition for torturing siblings. You will also use them as a counting aid when trying to figure out how many of them will fit up the dog's nose. You will not eat them.

• Finally, we arrive at the "feel good" treats. Oh, but they're not making the kids "feel good". No, they're making the smug, sanctimonious treat giver "feel good". Those kind of people like to be "practical" on Halloween. (Liking to be "practical" also seems to equate to "liking removing rolls and rolls of toilet paper from the front yard foliage the next morning." Go figure.) There is no place for anything "practical" when a bunch of people under four feet tall and running around the neighborhood, anticipating free candy AND getting it. Nothing practical about that and that's how it should be. Thus, no pencils, erasers, or any other type of school supply. If that was what the kids were after, they just would have gone over to Office Max and knocked on their door.

• The only folks who are allowed to hand out dental floss, toothbrushes or toothpaste are dentists and other professional individuals who do business inside of the mouth (preferably those with degrees and licenses, not hanging out on street corners under neon blinking lights that say "Massage"). But even then, they can only hand out those things at their office! At their home, they're not a dentist, they're a candy guy. So keep your floss to yourself and fork over the Snickers.

See? It's very simple. Avoid the stuff on this list, hand out stuff that kids want, and you'll be fine. Most importantly, whatever you do, just have a good time. I'm not sure what I'll be doing. Whatever it is, it probably won't be what I'd prefer to do or who I'd prefer to be with. You know, quite possibly the only thing more confusing than Halloween is women. And being as how I am one, I would definitely include myself in that generalization. Sometimes, I confuse myself with things. (And sometimes, confusion leads to dumbness.) I'll tell you what's not confusing though. What's not confusing is when you meet someone who you know is the real deal. Someone who's more genuine than anyone you've ever known, someone who's kind and honest, someone who has an amazingly strong will and who can navigate the way through unimaginable situations and come out on top. If you have yet to encounter such an individual, let me tell you, it's pretty amazing. And so are they.

Happy Halloween, chica.

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